The radical notion that women are adults

Jezebel has some trouble understanding Camille Paglia. Let’s help them out.

Camille Paglia has a written a new piece for Time Magazine, called It’s a Man’s World and it Always Will Be. Camille has the audacity to point out that if men are “obsolete”, then women will soon be extinct.

Oh dear. Cue the shrieking harridans over at Jezebel. They demand to know just what Camille means by that! How could that be possible? The increasingly clueless and defiantly obtuse Erin Gloria Ryan has some questions for Dr. Paglia.

Let’s help her answer those, shall we?

A peevish, grudging rancor against men has been one of the most unpalatable and unjust features of second- and third-wave feminism [Citation needed].

blah blah blah blah …. Basically the entire site is devoted to pointing out any flaws the ladies can find in men, all the while ignoring the fact they would have no power, clean water, communications or computer technology and would essentially be screaming messages back and forth between grass huts without men, a point Camille has made in the past.

Ideologue professors [Who?] at our leading universities [Which ones?] indoctrinate impressionable undergraduates [How? Are you implying that young people internalize ideologies simply by hearing them once? How is this indoctrination occurring] with carelessly fact-free [Odd hyperbole] theories alleging that gender is an arbitrary, oppressive fiction with no basis in biology [Bold statement. Source?].

This is almost too laughably ridiculous to warrant a response. Has Erin never heard of the women’s studies department? Almost every liberal arts oriented university has one, stuffed full of professors that do not study women, they study “feminism”, which is not the same thing.

People internalize ideologies by hearing them once? What? Show me the university degree that can be earned after one class. Impressionable undergraduates are typically enrolled for four years. Four years is more than sufficient for complete indoctrination.

If you want carelessly fact-free, just consider your questions at the beginning of the paragraph. Who? Which ones? Are you seriously patting yourself on the back for your epic take down of Camille? Really? That’s what Camille means by “fact-free”, toots.

And now you are denying that feminism considers gender a fiction with no basis in biology? Really? Here we go with the “fact-free” again. Google “gender as a social construct” and tell me what you get. Seriously. Go do it. It’s not a bold claim at all. It’s pedestrian at this point. Feminism claims that gender is a social fiction with no basis in biology.

There is no gender identity behind the expressions of gender… identity is performatively constituted by the very ‘expressions’ that are said to be its results.

Judith Butler

Is it any wonder that so many [How many?] high-achieving young women, despite all the happy talk about their academic success [Cite examples here, otherwise it just sounds like you’re talking out of your ass], find themselves in the early stages of their careers in chronic uncertainty or anxiety [See previous note about ass-talking] about their prospects for an emotionally fulfilled private life [See two previous notes about the origin of talking w/r/t Your Ass]?

Here we go with all the stupid facts again. The Anxiety and Depression Association of America reports that approximately 40 million people aged 18 and over suffer from anxiety issues, which is the most common mental illness in the US, and women are twice as likely to be affected as men.

Happy talk about women succeeding academically? Oh you missed this article? And this one? And this one, too? They’re all from Jezebel, you moron.

When an educated culture routinely denigrates masculinity and manhood [Clarification needed here to explain what your argument even is. What is manhood? What is masculinity? A John Wayne movie? Like, Iroquois manhood? Mustaches? Fatherhood? Dressing in plaid shirts? Dying of prostate cancer? Can the men be gay? Can the men be peaceful? You’re assuming your audience understands dog whistle shorthand that only exists in your brain.] then women will be perpetually stuck with boys, who have no incentive
to mature or to honor their commitments.

Well color me fucking SHOCKED that Jezebel has no idea what masculinity or manhood means. Here’s a starter course for you.

From my long observation [Anecdata], which predates the sexual revolution [Cut this; reminding readers that you formed your opinion before hippie-times doesn’t add to your cred; it makes you seem doddering], this remains a serious problem afflicting Anglo-American society, with its Puritan residue [Sounds like a euphemism for dried ejaculate; cut].

Anecdata? Dr. Paglia has been teaching at universities since 1972. Her book Sexual Personae topped the bestseller lists in 1990, a rare accomplishment for a scholarly book. She has been active in universities as an educator for over 40 years. That’s hardly “anecdata”.

“Doddering”? Charming. I’m surprised Erin didn’t pull out the fat and ugly arguments to go along with “old”. All praise the sisterhood, huh? What was that about critiquing other women on their thoughts and ideas again? No? Just call her old and be done with it?

How clever.

“Ejaculate”? That icky boy stuff? Ew, gross.

How mature.

In France, Italy, Spain, Latin America, and Brazil, in contrast, many ambitious professional women [How many?] seem [Ugh] to have found a formula for asserting power [Statistics? Something? Back this up please? Careful with the “Latin America, sexy feminist wonderland” stereotype;easily disprovable, or at least vehemently argued against. Also kind of in line with troublesome “sexy brown chick” trope you keep going back to; careful here] and authority in the workplace while still projecting sexual allure and even glamor [Oy.]. This is the true feminine mystique, which cannot be taught but flows from an instinctive recognition of sexual differences [Girl what are you even talking about here? Get some new cultural references].

Want facts? Probably not, but here are some anyways. This report might help.

Nearly 70% of women globally think that being beautiful helps them get what they want out of life, and the same number believe that the relationship between happiness and beauty is directly proportional. 93% of women said they felt more confident overall when they knew they looked beautiful.

Careful now. This may not be racist at all. Rather inclusive if you ask me. That’s kind of foreign to feminists, though, isn’t it?

After the next inevitable apocalypse [Okay. That is your argument. Men aren’t over because the world is ending. Okay. Okay. Got it.], men will be desperately needed again [Again, not sure you established that men aren’t needed now…]!

Not sure you established that men aren’t needed now.

Wow.

That needs to “established”, does it? Okay, here you go. All information taken from the Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Oh, sure, there will be the odd gun-toting Amazonian survivalist gal, who can rustle game out of the bush and feed her flock [Who is this piece about? Women who have children without men around? Childless young women with academic accomplishments? Why is the subject of this piece constantly morphing?], but most women and children will be expecting men [Citation needed] to scrounge for food and water and to defend the home turf [Just to review: we’re now arguing that gender roles must exist because after a theoretical apocalypse, women and children will “expect” men to fend for them? That’s what’s happening here? Okay.].

‘Women with young children are going back to the very traditional division of labour in which they want the husband as the breadwinner.

‘Having tried full-time working themselves they have found the home much more interesting and want to be enabled to have that.”

Stupid facts, again!

Indeed, men are absolutely indispensable right now, invisible as it is to most feminists [Citation needed], who seem blind to the infrastructure that makes their own work lives possible [Who hurt you, Camille?].

Citation needed? Go back to the top. Men are obsolete. The end of men. Are men necessary?

It is overwhelmingly men who do the dirty, dangerous work of building roads, pouring concrete, laying bricks, tarring roofs, hanging electric wires, excavating natural gas and sewage lines, cutting and clearing trees, and bulldozing the landscape for housing developments [Who is this argument against?].

It’s not an argument against anything. It’s pointing out the reality. Facts. I know, Erin, facts confuse you and make you feel all wobbly inside. Don’t worry. You can stick your head back in the sand very soon.

It is men who heft and weld the giant steel beams that frame our office buildings, and it is men who do the hair-raising work of insetting and sealing the finely tempered plate-glass windows of skyscrapers 50 stories tall [Ok.]. Every day along the Delaware River in Philadelphia, one can watch the passage of vast oil tankers and towering cargo ships arriving from all over the world [Don’t mention that you hang out in Philadelphia; undermines credibility].

Aw, no argument left? Just an insult against Philadelphia?

How very, very clever.

These stately colossi are loaded, steered, and off-loaded by men. The modern economy, with its vast production and distribution network, is a male epic, in which women have found a productive role—but women were not its author [They just made every man who ever existed inside of their bodies; nbd]. Surely, modern women are strong enough now to give credit where credit is due!

Hey, looky, looky. We actually agree! Women’s greatest contribution to society is to be a mother to children.

They made every man who ever existed. Erin, you do realize that human reproduction requires that icky ejaculate you were grossing out over not so long ago, right?

Sponsored links

I had never heard of the woman (no surprise there) and found a comment from her that instead of Paul Walker dying she wished it had been Scott Walker (who is apparently running for governor). She was wishing death on someone with whom she disagreed.

Google lesbian separatism. They had a few communes and long story short – no, they couldn’t manage indoor plumbing.

Kgaard

Excellent post. I was arguing on Facebook for a while and CONSTANTLY encountered people retorting with similar nitpicky questions such as the Jezebel person has done. I couldn’t stand it. Some people refuse to see the forest for the trees, and will defend the absence of the forest by beating you over the head with minutae. I just can’t do it anymore. I’m glad you did … but here’s the thing: They’ll never stop. And you’ll get tired of rebutting their retarded questions.

I have noticed that, too: when they disagree with you they demand proof. I tell them I’m not their momma, I didn’t take them to raise, and I assume they now how to use Google, and if they don’t they’re only embarrassing themselves.

patriarcal landmine

feminists really are the worst abusers of human rights in america today.

JB, it’s difficult to understand feminists like this without an understanding of Feminist Logic. And, no, that is not a euphemism, but a real thing. A recent article at AVfM pointed to a short academic treatise on the difference between formal logic and feminist logic. Seriously.

Formal logic is the process of proving a statement used to support an argument as true or not. The old If A=B and B=C, then A=C. Seems like a good start to constructing and supporting rational arguments and has worked for some thousands of years. But no more.

No, formal logic is no longer sufficient, and actual arguments may not be sufficient, either. Here’s a quote from the treatise:

logic cannot provide criteria for what counts as a good argument. Because the formal model is based on binary judgments (valid, invalid, sound,unsound) the model is incapable of justifying us in saying whether an argument is relevant, trivial, crucial, or better or worse than any other formally correct argument.

Of course, logic is supposed to prove and argument valid or not valid, which is different from proving an argument useful or correct. So the first feminist objection to logic is that it doesn’t do something that it is not designed to do. Which is like objecting to a screwdriver because it’s not a hammer. But that’s not the only failing of logic:

The requirement that we regard appraisal of arguments as a formal matter is in fact a requirement that we dissociate ourselves from ourselves. That is, claiming appraisal is formal is in effect a claim that the following things about ourselves are irrelevant at best and are likely to impede us: we have bodies; we have sexualities; we have histories, loves and hates, desires, a record on the issue at hand of
successes or failures or no record on the issue; we have feelings, sympathies, children, relationships, memories, hopes…Further, the view at issue often turns appraisal into something like a game, a sterile and self-contained exercise in which it is easy to forget the stakes involved and easy to dissociate the evaluative work from those parts of our lives which matter.

The short version: formal logic isn’t sufficient because it doesn’t take into account our sexuality or the stakes involved or especially our feelings about whether an argument is logically true or not. So the beginning of a “formal” feminist logic is that it must take a woman’s feelings into account rather than rely on the old-style “male” version of logic.

But that’s still not all:

…arguments in general cannot be trusted. Arguments on this view are only expressions of ideology and are ineffective at helping us make progress. Arguments on this view get marginalized while speculations, especially imaginative and literary suppositions and lines of thought characterized by stream of consciousness writing, including puns and etymologies, take their places. These exaggerations are apparently very attractive to many thinkers because the results allow for more diversity of methods in addressing issues and act as a prophylactic against negative judgments. The exaggerations also help to maintain a boundary between the sexist and sterile sciences, and the humanities where life is still allowed its juice.

And this is exactly how I’ve seen “logical arguments” advanced, especially on Radical Feminist sties. Whether an assertion or argument is valid or true depends not only on how a woman feels about it, but actual facts and logical consistency are not even needed and can–and routinely are–replaced by suppositions and speculations that are taken as fact and then build upon. It indeed insulates the feminist from negative judgments since you can’t argue against assertions based on feelings and suppositions. And it “maintains a boundary” from all those dreary “sciences” where there are actual rules to follow in favor of the “humanities” where you can just make up the rules as you go along and you’re never, ever wrong.

When seen in this light, Erin Gloria Ryan and even Manjaw Mandy Marcotte start to make sense (a sentence I never thought I’d ever find myself typing).

smokeeye

“Feminism is Calvinball” is one of the greatest summations I’ve ever had the pleasure of reading.

Jim

“So the beginning of a “formal” feminist logic is that it must take a woman’s feelings into account rather than rely on the old-style “male” version of logic.”

That’s the same as admitting that they don’t THINK, they FEEL. Enormous difference here.

Charlotte

Nearly all of the women I know who proclaim the loudest that they are strong, independent women who don’t need a man work as secretaries, nannies, retail cashiers, etc. Not a single one does anything truly productive. None of them are producing a tangible good, none of them are designing or building infrastructure, and none of them are doing anything that keeps the basic structure of society running smoothly. Women who work outside the home are almost universally in safe, cushy, service sector jobs and the occasional office cubicle – the #1 most popular job for women is still secretary, (oops, I mean “administrative assistant.”) When I see large numbers of women building bridges and climbing power poles, then I’ll say that men are obsolete. But thanks to women’s nature, that will never, ever happen. We will always need men to do the hard work because we can’t and we won’t.

Over the past century, it was labor-saving appliances, invented by men [Fact check: The dishwasher, foot pedal trashcan, disposable diapers, the electric hot water heater, the ironing board, and the rolling pin were all invented by women

footpedal trashcan? ironing board? Now there’s an invention LOL
rolling pin: Sure this must be an ancient device.. kinda like pots and pans.. how does one whether a man or a woman invented it? Google reveals..

Origin
The first rolling pins were homemade from wood. According to MadeHow.com, the Etruscans are the first civilization known to have used the rolling pin. The height of their civilization was in the 9th century BC. The rolling pin was not much more than a simple wooden cylinder then.

The dishwasher.. now this I had to check. Wikipedia reveals…

The first reports of a mechanical dishwashing device are of an 1850 patent in the United States by Joel Houghton for a hand-powered good device. This device was made of wood and was cranked by hand while water sprayed onto the dishes. This device was both slow and unreliable. Another patent was granted to L.A. Alexander in 1865 that was similar to the first but featured a hand-cranked rack system. Neither device was practical or widely accepted.The first reliable (hand-powered) dishwasher was invented in 1887 by Josephine Cochrane and unveiled at the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair. Cochrane was quite wealthy and never washed dishes herself; she reportedly invented the dishwasher because her servants were chipping her fine china.[2]

There were a series of subsequent innovations in dishwasher technology (including making it ELECTRICITY-powered LOL) by men. So arguing that a woman invented this is disingenuous.

Emma the Emo

Even if something really was invented by women, it’s a weak argument. For the most part, invention is the domain of men, both in quality and quantity.

The whole invention comparison pissing contest is pure infantilism. Neccessity is the mother of all invention. Humans only solve the problems they present themselves with. If there’s a historical difference between the number of inventions that one sex has made versus the other (And there is), it says much more about one sex’ desire/capability of attempting to solve problems vs the other than it does about either sex’ capability to think creatively.

If necessity is the mother of invention, why is it overwhelmingly men that do it?
Oh, here’s your explanation: “it says much more about one sex’ desire/capability of attempting to solve problems vs the other than it does about either sex’ capability to think creatively”.
So, if one sex can lift more weight than the other, it says more about their skeletal muscles’ ability to contract than about their actual ability to lift weight.
Can’t you see how completely nonsensical your argument is?

The disparity in number of inventions between the sexes does not explain what you want it to explain. Capability for thinking creatively is only one ingredient necessary to solve a problem. Ultimately if someone has a problem they must solve, they will solve it, be they man or woman. Their solution may not be the most elegant, but it will be a solution nonetheless. What you are arguing is that one sex paints better landscape scenes than the other, which is both trivial and non-revealing of the capabilities of each.

Sad to say i have seen men do the same thing as Ms/Mrs Ryan does to Ms/Mrs Paglia and demand that everything be sourced. Not you JB, but others have.

And both sides (well, maybe more the feminists but then i usually get my news secondhand) seem to want to argue against words rather than have a good argument via trying to understand what the other means and arguing against that.

It’s all good. I have always been a bit lukewarm toward some parts of the MHRM, and AVfM. I agree with many of their positions, but not with all of them, and some of the posts have more than a whiff of butthurt that I find unappealing. And some parts I find a bit paranoid, like the “self-protection” section under the “About” menu. Seriously, don’t date women ever?

Still, I’ll support them where I can and ignore the silliness when I can’t.

I know I am very late to this discussion, but what exactly do you mean by “whiff of butthurt”? This is close to “asking for proof” that is being decryed here, but I am genuinely curious what you, personally, consider to be a sign that the writer of an article or comment is expressing “butthurt” (whatever that is exactly).

What is the difference between a “butthurt” opinion and one that is not “butthurt”?

Do you mean to say that it’s just complaining because the person didn’t get their way rather than some nobly expressed idea based on some objective analysis?

Dismissing an argument based on the motivation of the author is not logically sound. There can still be truth in arguments that come from a place of personal hurt.

Not true LostSailor.
You just cant argue with Alek Novy on any subject closely related to Game. He’s just too emotionally invested in it.

Do other moderators at AVFM screw up occasionally? Yep..
I have also seen a whole lot of nobodys come there and do dick-waving and act like bigshots. “You guys arent doing activism right“, and throwing in personal insults along with that.
Any site focused on activism and community-building HAS to wield the banhammer more harshly than non-activist sites. Its a fine line.

But as I said above, it’s all good. Their site, their rules. I had a short email back-and-forth with Paul about it, so I do understand where they’re coming from. I try to make most of my commentary substantive, though I occasionally succumb to the temptation of troll-baiting…

Human-stupidity,
you fail to mention that you were almost banned at your favorite haunt.. the AntiFeminist.. a place dedicated to your MAIN ISSUE of “mens sexual liberation via ebphebophilia”. And you were also put up for “paedocrite of the year” just in the last week, and removed later after some discussion. And that very site also banned a famous co-fighter “Jay Hammers”, after welcoming him with open arms. You guys cant even get along amongst yourselves, and you bitching about AVFM is a joke.

I watched what went down when you got banned at AVFM. YOU picked the fight on their SITE, because they wouldnt co-operate with your strategy of adding your pet-issue to their bandwagon, and piggybacking on their momentum. Your allegations of them INTERFERING with your work was a joke.
You know damn well that your issue is a hot-potato issue and the MRM already has many hot-potato issues and cant afford to take your even-more hot potato issue up. What baffles me is why you guys dont branch off as a ‘Mens Sexual Liberation Movement’ (MSLM).. and be the leaders of that movement and build a following.

Liz

A captain for Southwest was fired recently. It’s almost impossible to get fired with that level of seniority, and the backing of the union. It has to be something absolutely egregious. It was. SHE shut off the engine 80 feet above the ground and crash landed, breaking off the nose gear of the plane.
Her severance package is 2 million dollars. If it were a man, he’d be out on his @ss with nothing.

Maybe Erin Gloria Ryan wrote all that *ironically* knowing, after all, that she’s typing on a product designed and built by a man in a building designed and built by men, house in a city designed and built by men…

Days of Broken Arrows

I just discovered that before Erin Gloria Ryan started a Jezebel, she worked for VH1 show Best Week Ever.

So, essentially, here you have a blogger and former trash TV writer (if she even wrote there) attempting to critique something by an academic whose pedigree can’t be criticized even if you disagree with her. I hope Camille is at least amused at this.

Maybe Jenny McCarthy can take her on next.

Bee

It’s refreshing to hear a celebration of men building civilization. “Canadian Railroad Trilogy” highlights how visionary white men risked life and profits to open and link Canada’s ore, lumber, and grains to the distant seaports. The songwriter tells how we all benefit from the “…mines, mills, and the factories” – no “environmental guilt” here.

“Navvies” is the slang for the surveyors and workers who built the railroads. Some were motivated by adventure, but the vast majorities were motivated to save enough money so they could afford to “earn” a bride. “Monogamy is as important as the wheel and fire in establishing our civilization.” Dr. F. Roger Devlin

These stately colossi are loaded, steered, and off-loaded by men. The modern economy, with its vast production and distribution network, is a male epic, in which women have found a productive role—but women were not its author [They just made every man who ever existed inside of their bodies; nbd].
———————–
We women aren’t incubators put on this earth to churn out little rapists for you patriarch bastards! ………………..

……that is, until someone like Paglia makes a compelling case that men may be better at just about everything else.

Feminists taking credit for making babies is like the Air National Guard taking credit for toppling Saddam or offing Osama.

Alex

just wait till someone discovers a way to make an artificial womb (whether it’s viable and practical or not). they’ll probably spend so much energy doing something about that that lets us go around fixing everything while they’re not paying attention

Good points, I enjoy your reading your thoughts. I find the home envrio more interesting because the computer and books are there. I hate doing dishes and laundry– I would do it all to support a family– but I prefer outdoor work like landscaping and trail-building. I’m probably one of those odd “Amazonian” gals there’s got to be a compromise with me. As long as I have a man willing to compromise and do half the shit I don’t want to do at home, I will do some bacon-go-getting no problems. I’m fair. I have an understanding an accomplishment-based society doesn’t favour accomplished women. But I don’t favour an accomplishment-based society.

“and would essentially be screaming messages back and forth between grass huts without men”
This is rubbish. You wouldn’t have grass huts.
That series of survivor where the men and women were in separate teams was a laff riot. In the first episode, the men build a shelter. It’s crap, but it works. The women hold hands in a circle, tell each other how strong and powerful they are, and are eventually seen wearing plastic raincoats supplied to them by the production team.
A classic, and really all you need to know about the “end of men”.

Jim

LOL! Wish I had seen that. Although I despise these reality shows and TV in general anyway.